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The Mic Is on in Search of Pirates!

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It’s Like Open Mike Only Different

Here’s how it works.

The rules are simple — be nice.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. . . . Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

Some things we might talk about could include

  • .pirates.
  • crayons and legos
  • uban legends
  • vacations.

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

What are the code-writing donkey and the drinking moose doing tonight?

A link anyone to was a member of the DCI related to one of the points above.

Keep an eye our for the Jolly Roger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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The Mic is ON. It’s Thassos Island, Greece!
The Mic in ON in Tuscany!

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Comments

  17. Hi everyone!
    Hi Anton — I’m glad you could make it!
    Sorry I’m a few minutes late. How bad of me to invite someone and then show up after they do. Someone’s got to teach this girl a lesson!

    Reply

  20. Anton,
    You need to know that crayons were part of the pirates treasure. They’re very special here.

    We keep them in the sidebar — along with snack and beverages — which tonight i guess would be grog and weevils.

    Reply

  28. Anton works with my husband, and he has a brilliant wit. He wrote an excellent tongue-in-cheek article about his experience with Verizon. He turned it into a how-to on how to get out of your contract without paying a fee. I’m gonna find the link…just a sec….

    Reply

  30. Thanks all for the welcome!

    I think the plank is a bit harsh for Cuileann. That should be reserved for someone who eats the last crayon or drinks the last of the grog.

    Reply

  36. RE: Verizon

    Unfortunately Verizon started sending out new terms that allow them to charge the early termination fee even if they initiate the cancellation 🙁

    I have not yet gotten one but a few people on evdoforums.com have posted about the letter.

    When did it become good practice to litigate and fee your customers to death?

    Reply

  40. Shiver me timbers has to do with when a blast from a cannon hits the wood of ship and causes the wood to “shiver.” It’s a real term from history. We saw it on the History Channel. So it MUST be true.

    Reply

  45. Anton,
    When did it become good practice to litigate and fee your customers to death?
    Telcos don’t have customers they have prisoners.

    THEY ARE PIRATES!!!

    Reply

  48. Verizon told me via phone that they would waive the fee. I guess if they don’t they’ll be getting an earful. Anyone want to round up the execs and corporate lawyers and make them walk the plank?

    Reply

  54. Hi .. I’ll be around in about 1-1/2 hours, but thought I would start with the jokes periodically .. Prime Time TV reality nut here .. Big Brother, Canadian Idol, Supernova, Last Comic Standing .. etc etc

    ~~~~~

    Q. How much did the pirate pay for his peg leg and hook?
    A. An arm and a leg.

    ~~~~~

    Q. Where can you find a pirate who has lost his wooden legs?

    A. Right where you left him.

    ~~~~

    Q. How much does a pirate pay to get his ears pierced?

    A. AAARRRGGG! A BUCK AN EAR!

    Reply

  57. I dropped my Cingular plan today.

    I now have Sprint for both voice and data. Sprint’s EVDO seems to perform slightly better at home than Verizion did and it hasn’t dropped me once in 24 hours.

    Reply

  59. Okay Hart.

    We’ll catch up later. I remember that Canada doesn’t have the option for TiVo. It drives me crazy when I’ve been up there! Likewise, our folks marvel when they see it down here.

    Reply

  61. I dropped T-Mobile for AT&T about 3 years ago because they wouldn’t let me in on the new customer pricing for new phones even though I’d been a customer for 5 years without a contract.

    AT&T of course became Cingular and I managed to wrangle a free phone when they forced me to switch. Then I move to Texas and Cingular coverage sucks so I just dropped them.

    So far Sprint isn’t sucking but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

    Reply

  63. Glad Sprint’s working out, Anton. We’re with AT&T and they’ve been pretty reliable for us. Thinking of trying Time Warner for everything (cable, digital phone, Internet) when we move into our new house.

    Reply

  64. I have Verizon phone, wireless, and DSL. I’ve been lucky, and haven’t had any problems – yet. I gave up on their service when I was calling them for a tenant at work and the only way to get a real life actual person on the phone was to confuse the voice mail system so much by speaking total gibberish that it gave up and handed me off to a real person.

    Reply

  69. The Cingular store here in Savannah must be horribly managed then, Liz, because our experience here was abysmal. And the folks in the store here couldn’t really help us after making us wait for an hour to be attended to. They just got on the line with their call center and went through the same rigmarole that we went through before we went to the store.

    Since the person in the store wasn’t communicating our problem with any effect, we left and called the call center again. Then, after going through two levels of supervisors/managers they managed to drive Gorgeous to tears.

    I nearly throttled the manager through the phone. We tried so hard to stay with them and they drove us away. We’ve been with Alltel since. And it was a whole different customer service experience. At least here in Savannah.

    Reply

  70. Ahoy, matey. Cuileann has been saved from walking the plank. Grub is by me until you get scurvy ( you are looking a little peaked). The phone companies are piratical monopolies that hold you prisoner giving you as little as they can to get all they can.

    Reply

  72. Getting back to Chris’s point about all of us maybe just getting bits of info from google. The keynote speaker at the Writers’ League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference had a pessimistic, if not apocalyptic, view of where our society’s going. People just getting little bits of info out of context from a search engine, a sort of pseudo-knowledge, rather than really a full book. I’m more optimistic than that.

    Reply

  73. Liz – the donkey’s working on the Fawlty Towers project, that’s why I was hoping to see Starbucker. The donkey may be hitting the road soon!

    Hhhm…pirate talk. Well, us Canadians already have a piratey accent, eh?

    Reply

  76. Ben,
    I’ve not seen Starbucker yet. I like your Canadian accent idea. Maybe all Canadians are pirates. HART sure left a lot of pirate jokes earlier. Hmmmm.

    Reply

  77. While we were waiting that hour we watched them turn away an older gentleman who brought in his check to pay his bill. They pointed him to the ATM like kiosk in the corner for bill paying. The guy couldn’t handle the technology and just wanted to save the cost of the stamp and be sure they received his payment.

    They literally refused to accept his money. And he walked out of the store with his check still in hand. I felt so bad for him.

    Reply

  79. I don’t know, Cuileann. I was reading on Michael Fortin’s blog today where he described surfers as “…click-happy, and they search for information online at the speed of electrons all with the attention span the size of a subatomic particle.” A lot of the research on the scanning behavior of surfers shows the same thing. On the other hand, a lot of people are willing to put in the research needed to get a real grasp on something.

    Reply

  80. We are known for our plundering.

    And our love of treasure.

    I’m trying to think of what else to send Starbucker along with the Fawlty Towers DVD Collection. A Montreal postcard makes sense, so we can track where the DVDs go (each person would ship the DVDs with a postcard) but I want to think of something catchier too…

    Reply

  82. Yeah, Ben, I guess our accents are different. Mine has turned into a bit of a freak show (mostly kidding). I use the “eh?” and still get teased down here “about” my “abouts.” And in Canada, I get teased about the odd “y’all” I let fly. And then living in England, I picked up saying “Cheers” instead of thanks sometimes. I’m just a hybrid now.

    Reply

  86. I don’t know if they still do, but Tampa used to celebrate Gasparilla day celebrating when the pirates took over the town. All the local civic leaders dressed up as pirates and came sailing into the bay on an old sailing ship. The mayor handed them the key to the city. They had their best parade of the year.

    Reply

  94. Chris,
    Is the term “head” a polite way of saying the deposit of excess food that was put in the mouth (head) and out the bottom half?

    Reply

  100. Hey all! I’m just pausing at the Apple store in San Antonio and thought I’d drop in. There are no pirates here that I can see, but I’ll keep looking.

    Reply

  102. Hey Ben,
    Yeah, it worked great… Thanks.
    I did thank you in comments at my house, just so everyone knows how well it worked.

    @ Chris, Jean LaFeete?

    Reply

  103. Ben, I installed the Notable plugin today too on your recommendation. Thanks.

    Liz, wasn’t Captain Hook fictional?

    Cuileann, Head does refer to toilet. But why, eh?

    Reply

  108. I’m glad it worked for you Joe. I’ve experimented with a few other plugins – so let me know if you have any other WordPress-related questions.

    I still say Blackbeard. Or was it Bluebeard? Redbeard? Fuschia Beard? I know the most famous pirate definitely had a beard…

    Reply

  112. Curileann, Sorry I know, but Chris is (was) a nautical kinda guy, thought he may know.

    @John, keep an eye out for RedBeard too.

    Reply

  115. Actually, since we were talking about heads (and John I don’t think you’ve heard this), my step-father just got back from being on a crew trying to sail a boat from N. Carolina to Toronto. Turns out that both of the boat’s heads were broken — that led to some good times with cups and buckets. Ewww. But they didn’t make it all the way to Toronto. There was too much flooding in New York to take it through the locks so it’ll have to be trucked up.

    Reply

  117. Chris, maybe I should just stop answering questions ???

    I still think I’m right, but it could be Lord Nelson (after he retired from pirating)

    Reply

  119. I’ve done the “no working head” thing in the Atlantic before… On an aircraft carrier. Can you say “Eww!”?

    But that still isn’t as tricky as trying to take care of business when you are strapped to an ejection seat for 5 hours or more…

    Reply

  131. I say its the Dread Pirate Roberts – although I’ll admit I haven’t really been following this conversation too closely so I don’t really know what I’m actually answering.

    Reply

  134. Hmmm…dunno if I wanna know where you’re going with that head explanation.

    But I do know that I hadn’t thought of that 5 hours in the ejection seat conundrum. The movies never portray that.

    Reply

  141. Sailors call the toilet the head because they would find a place up at the very front of the ship to do their busienss so that the sea water breaking at the bow would wash it away, there not being plumbing an all.

    They would say they were going to the head, which was also what they called the very front of the ship.

    Reply

  144. I’m listening to Virgin Classic Rock from London… they are 5 hours ahead of my time, so this way I know what is happening before it happens here.

    Reply

  147. Liz, I’m not really an expert on Pirates. I just happen to have a formal nautical education. So I know some piratey things. [*whispers* arrrrrrgggghhhh…]

    Reply

  148. Joe,
    Wait until Cat shows up. It’s already tomorrow there. We’ll be sure that the sun is going to rise again. We’ll be able to sleep in peace tonight.

    Reply

  151. Talk about a time warp…
    We can all talk at the same time and it isn’t the same time whever we are.
    And we can learn about Pirates.

    Reply

  152. Actually Liz I know lots of stuff. I’m just not sure how useful much of it is. My dad used to say I had a very trivial mind.

    I still haven’t figured out if it is a good thing or not.

    Reply

  160. Hi Liz, Hi Everybody!!
    it’s 9.42 am in Malaysia. I think you guys are preparing for bed?
    Sunny whether today after 2 days of rain.

    Reply

  173. Hhmmm…no tonic eh? Dang y’all!

    Alright, I gotta jet for now. I may pop up in a couple hours but I need to look at something other than a computer screen for awhile.

    If anyone knows a good caricature artist that could draw me a donkey, please get in touch (byosko@gmail.com). It’s for the Fawlty Towers DVD Collection Viral Project…

    Reply

  174. Hey ah pek,
    Still a good 1 1/2 to 2 hours left in me.

    @ Douglas, No one is out of place here, if you don’t like pirates, just start talking about whatever you like, someone will join in…
    😉

    Reply

  179. Ben,
    Take some tonic from the sidebar — there’s always plenty of every beverage there. And feel better. Tell that Donkey to get the coding done. We miss his drooling.

    Reply

  194. I should do some more work on a post and publish it tonight. Hmm…I chose a huge topic and my perfectionism’s driving me nuts. It’s for writers — about how to do your homework before finding an agent. A subject big enough for a whole book. I just have to keep reminding myself that it’s just a blog entry to suggest some ideas, not a definitive guide. I’m almost finished it, though. I just have to make a few tweaks, put it in perspective, and click “Publish.”

    Reply

  195. Liz,
    the 23 comments it took for the beer run = 15 minutes. Just multiply 23 x 6 or 8 and you get your answer. 😉

    @ Ben, If you haven’t left yet try this guy Dave, He has cartoons for Blogs, so he may be able to help Milton get his picture took.
    http://www.weblogcartoons.com/
    He does have contact info and all.
    J.

    Reply

  205. Hey, is there an ending time for this? Just curious about whether I can go and finish this post and come back to the mic being still “open” (though I know the folks around it may have changed).

    Reply

  207. Chris, Clearly as you can see in the photo, I’m very okay with my modeling career and all that it reveals. I will pay you nothing. (In fact, that photo could increase my visits!)

    Reply

  216. With signs that say “DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS” and “NO THEY SOUND LIKE THEY SPEAK ENGLISH, BUT IT REALLY IS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND THE WORDS MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT”

    I know, I know. Long for a sign, but short for a wireless contract.

    Reply

  217. Telco Cage Match, Pirate Style!

    Give each telco CEO a hook (cut their hand off first) and an eye patch and let them duke it out in a double elimination cage match!

    Reply

  226. Morning all!!

    Pirates … pirates … I lived on Borneo for nine years where there are pirates even today.

    From what I read in the Borneo Bulletin, apparently they’d come over through the Sulu sea from the Philippines and raid small boats and those laden with goods.

    In this BBC article, they are calling them ‘maritime muggers’ but they are pirates all the same …

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/4350881.stm

    cat

    Reply

  235. I can do Life, the Universe, and Everything. Sure, why not?

    Christine, Are you going to be a professor at Successful Blog University?

    You all can be professors. Joe you can do that with your other duties.

    Reply

  237. Hi Christine,

    I’m glad it sounds interesting. This post is part of a series based on the Writers League of Texas Agent and Editor Conferences (I’ve been to 3) and what I’ve learned about the process from trying to find an agent for my novel, Consumption. I wrote a general post about the conference, then one about writers and blogging, then there’ll be this one (hopefully tonight) about researching agents, then one titled “How to Write a Query Letter,” and, finally, one titled “Let’s Get Married: The Agent/Author Relationship.”

    Are you into writing too?

    Reply

  246. I didn’t know you had one either until they just unleashed the whole community thing this week. They are going in the web 2.0 direction. I think it is pretty cool.

    Reply

  248. Hey Christine,

    I just saw your blog — it’s awesome. I’ll definitely do some more reading there.

    Yeah, I guess with music, you’d have lots of interest in/interactions with agents, too.

    Reply

  249. Hi Everybody. I was browsing a few pages back before posting again – lots of interesting chat tonight!

    Like, you know .. how’s everybody doing, eh? (Canadian Accent)

    ~~~~~~~~
    Q. Why are pirates called pirates?
    A. They just AAAARRRRRRRR.

    Reply

  252. oops. i disappeared and missed a lot. and now i must depart. cuileann, yes, I love reading about writing and all facets of people’s careers in writing. so, I’ll check out your blog tomorrow!

    Liz, I’ll be a professor. But I think I’d have to give up the modelling career. (did i scare Ah Pek away?)

    bye all! have a great night!

    Reply

  256. Personally I like letting my readers know which links are popular. I thought they had a good thing going before . And now they’ve embraced the whole community concept in a big way. I’m all about that.

    Reply

  267. Bye Christine!

    Everybody else — I’m going to jump out of the talk for a bit.

    I’m going to finish editing, get some balls (cannon balls, of course) and finally post this thing!

    I’ll drop back in a while…

    Reply

  273. Hi Joe … and everybody here! ~waving madly as I forgot to say that at first!!

    ~~~~ Another Joke

    A glum looking pirate walks into a bar with a pile of paper-towel on his head. He sits down at the bar and the bar-tender asks “What’s wrong?”

    The pirate replies, “Arrr. I’ve got a bounty on me head.”

    Reply

  275. Grog was watered down rum that was rationed to sailors for a couple of reasons.

    1. Sailors like to drink
    2. It helped kill some of the nasties in the water and stretched the ship’s water supply.
    3. And once they figured out the scurvey thing, they would also squeeze lemons or limes into it to get the sailors their vitamin C becuase they would drink the alcohol, but sucking lemons, not so much.

    Reply

  282. Rick, it may have been a nautical career, but I’m not sure how real it’s been yet.

    Liz, I’ll email you about my Chicago trip.

    Good night all!

    Reply

  284. Rick,
    I’m not ignoring you. You seem to be holding your own in the conversation, I’m off to get more grog for everyone. It can taste like whatever you want it to.

    Reply

  285. Hi and Bye Douglas – if you are really going 🙂

    Rick .. I hope no one is “shocked” by my jokes and needs to hang anybody’s heads … I that that pirates AAAAAAAARRR the ones to push them off planks?

    ~~~ Okay .. one of only a few stupid pirate jokes left in my arsenal…

    Q. What do pirates drive?
    A. A Caaaarrh.

    Q. What do pirates fly?
    A. An Aaaarrhhhplane.

    Q. What do pirates sail?
    A. Their pirate ship….duh. (AAAARRRRRRR)

    Reply

  287. Grog tastes like watered down rum. Think of what the Bacardi in your father’s liquer cabinet tasted like after your first high school party.

    They used half a pint of rum per quart of water so about 20% rum, 80% water. The rum was cheap alcohol and kept the ameobas and bacteria from thriving.

    Reply

  291. Laughing is good for the soul Rick 🙂 But, so is sleeping, so if you are going .. G’nite.. I’ll keep up with the jokes as I can think of them! They’ll be here tomorrow…

    ~~~~~
    A pirate walks into a bar with a big wooden ship’s steering wheel attached to his belt buckle.

    The bartender says “Hey, buddy? What’s that for?”

    The pirate says “Arrr! It’s drivin’ me nuts!”

    Reply

  293. Joe,
    I already made Chris that. He was the first professor I named.
    Good night Chris. We’ll catch up on your trip. I have one about the same time so we’ll have to coordinate.

    Reply

  297. When we visited the USA (Fargo or Grand Forks) .. we would always stop at the duty-free and pick up (besides cig’s) Bacardi 151 Rum .. Yuuuuum ..

    Liz .. for archives .. there is also another one out there .. KG Archives

    That’s the plugin I use at http://PetLvr.com/blog/ .. because I like the posts to be organized by category by month. I think you can list the historical posts by month for only one category at a time (what i REALLY want) but, I have too many categories and just figured that what I have is the best configuration without trying to reinvent the wheel.

    ~~~~~ PS

    A little boy is trick or treatin’ on Halloween by himself. He is dressed as a pirate. At one house, a friendly man asks him, “Where are your buccaneers?” The little boy responds, “On either side o’ me ‘buccan’ head!”

    Reply

  300. Umm… timber me shivers … before you go and say .. The last time I heard those Pirate Jokes HART .. I fell of my dinosaur! … I got them all at the site:

    http://www.ratemypiratejoke.com/

    ~~~~~ Such as this one:

    One day a Pirate and a bartender were talking to each other in a bar. The Bartender asked the pirate “Where did ya get that peg leg from?”

    The Pirate responded “We were sailing the seas when a big ol shark came up to me while I was swimmin and bit off me leg.”

    Later the Bartender asked “Where did you get that hook then?”

    The pirate responded “Well, me crew and I were in a battle and it got cut through the bone.”

    The bartender then asked “Then where did ya get the eye patch from?”

    The pirate said “In a harbor I looked at a gull flying over head and it took a dump right in me eye.”

    The bartender was puzzled and asked the pirate, “How would that make you get an eye patch?”

    The pirate responded, “First day with the hook.”

    Reply

  304. Weeeell .. never done – let’s just say “on a break”. BTW .. today’s my birthday. I posted birthday tunes on my blog and did the “born this day” thingy too .. (inspired from you!)

    Reply

  311. Speaking of FlickR … I’m trying to downsize my server #1 to my server #2 .,. I’ve got about 600MB of wedding pictures, videos, misc amusing stuff etc. I also looked at the MySQL database and had a fit – I’m using about 10 different scripts over there.

    I was thinking I might get the FlickR wordpress plugin, pay for the premium account at FlickR $24.95 USD .. and between YouTube and Flickr .. less bandwidth, less space, …

    Is anybody actually using that flickr plugin? How’s it working out?

    Reply

  312. HART

    Happy birthday. I’m sure it is a pleasure to finally be old enough to drink the grog.

    I just dropped in to say hello and goodbye. Too much work and not enough fun. I’ll stick by for about ten minutes…

    Can a nuclear submarine be a pirate ship?

    Scot

    Reply

  316. I think it was great
    being a Pirate for a night.
    It was a wonderful date
    but the hags were a freight.

    Now for the last bit of Grog
    and off to the head,
    with my head in a fog
    I’m off to bed.

    Berma Shave
    Nite Liz
    Nite All

    Reply

  318. Hi Scot .. thanks for wishes 🙂

    And, to answer your question – I don’t see why a nuke sub couldn’t be a pirate ship – it would have to strictly depend on what you do with it, or who’s commanding it.

    You would have to go around threatening innocent sailers and boaters and steal all their grog me thinks.

    Reply

  319. Liz,

    So we need a summary comment every 100 or so (Most people would give their hook away for 100 comments on a post and here we are looking for summaries…cheeeeeze!). Just so we can read three comments and jump in.

    Anyway, what’s the scoop on the code-writing donkey and the drinking moose tonight? I don’t want to go through 300+ comments to know the only thing I want to know…

    (nite, Joe…)

    Reply

  320. My favorite cake? I think that would have to be Jeannie’s Cake (which, is a Local Winnipeg institutional product here) .. it’s a banana chocolate dry cake with lots of icing and a thick crust bottom.

    The Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cakes are also good for birthdays .. especially after a steak BBQ dinner!

    But, really any cake with icing and your name spelled on it is good – anything less is just fat pastry you can eat any day really ~

    Reply

  321. Hey Scot,
    The donkey and the moose are turning into working stiffs and haven’t been showing up. Ben’s got the donkey coding all of the time and Steve’s got family and a new baby on the way.

    Most of tonight has been pirates with a short foray into a discussion about Christine’s fictious porn career that Chris and I made up.

    Reply

  322. (nite, Joe..)

    Liz .. I’ve also been trying to figure out what that donkey code is all about too! Although, I suspect it must have something to do with Joe and Ben ..(I could be wrong)

    Reply

  324. Fictitious career planning. Sounds like something us consultants do all the time! I mean, OTHER consultants .. not me oh no. I never make up things or tell stories. Never. Ever. Nope. No Sirree!

    Reply

  328. (#268) not on your life – seeing I’m late let me have some fun…

    Ahoy there Me hearties, just pillaged me some rum from the rest of the booty … and Arrrr, Shiver me timbers! it’s over – I’m a marooned Buccaneer with not a single soul to share my grog and weevils with.

    Argh, I always come late … Hart, don’t go there; do so and you’re walking the plank 😉

    btw, Happy birthday.

    just skimming: a donkey, a moose, a porn career …

    Reply

  329. Hi!

    I think I’m the last one here now.

    Hart — Happy Birthday! Sorry I missed saying it earlier.

    Well, I finally made that post a few minutes ago. Don’t worry — I didn’t stay up super-late for that. I really slept in today, so I had trouble getting to sleep.

    Cheers, Liz, for hosting another great open mic!
    And to everybody, good night, eh? I’ll talk to y’all next time!
    — Hybrid Language Girl
    (just referring back a couple hundred posts) : )

    Reply

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